The International House of Mojo

If you’re anything like me, you may have wondered what the logic behind LeChuck’s appearances in the underground tunnels is. (That is in LeChuck’s Revenge, natch.) Now, Ron has kicked Grumpy Gamer back into action and shed some light on it all:

A quick look at the code gives proof that you aren’t going crazy and there are reasons for LeChuck’s lengthy absences.

I’m one of those crazy people who like to take my time with a game, but I’ll still give budding speed runners a piece of advice: Use keyboard shortcuts—“P” for “pick up,” “U” for “use,” etc.—and you’ll save valuable seconds. The odds of beating LeChuck’s voodoo doll increase significantly.

We’re all getting older, as proven by the number of staffers and readers that have spawned offspring. And, for those with younger kids, finding a way to lull them to sleep can seem like a downright chore. Thankfully, an... artist?... called Lullaby Legends has taken it into their own hands to alleviate the problem with some unexpected tracks.

That is indeed the Scurvy Island theme and a strange version of “The SCUMM Bar” is available, too.

I have a hard time imagining this being properly licensed music—copyright Paul Robert Martin Leonard True?—so enjoy it while you can.

I’ll keep this short so I don’t interrupt the flood of Indy coverage: You now have yet another way to own Return to Monkey Island, this time from the Epic Games Store. It’s available for a cent cheaper than $17.50.

Back to Indy!

Not literally (that we know of), but he is once again doing a fireside chat, this time for “LudoNarraCon 2023”:

I’m not seeing the actual date for Ron’s talk on the official page, but going by his Mastodon post, it will take place on the opening day. Presumably, this is what the meaning of “May the 4th be with you” is.

Here’s one we forgot to mention, at least until we dropped it in The Adventurer: A remaster of the Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo soundtrack (Footnote: Incorrectly we put “world” in the newsletter—Putt-Putt never reached those types of lofty achievements.) has hit Bandcamp. Courtesy of The Fat Man and Team Fat, $10 gets you both MP3 and FLAC downloads which is a good deal by most any definition. Run and buy.

That’s Bajakian, Land, and McConnell to you.

We knew it existed, and after we dropped some vague threats in the previous GDC video thread, Sushi intervened, and gave us the link to the Monkey Island composers GDC talk: Find it here—I’ll skip the video embed this time, as it doesn’t have much of a shelf life.

This is the good stuff, but you already knew that, and it’s one facet of Return to Monkey Island we haven’t heard too many details about. Until now. And there are tons of 'em. Run and read! (And thanks, Sushi!)

Mojo asked and GDC answered: Jenn Sandercock’s ReMI has made its way online. And to save you the click, here it is.

I haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, but will very much carve out the hour to do so ASAP. As should you—what else do you really have going on if you’re reading this?

Update: After clearly exceeding their streaming limits from hoards of Mojo views, the embedded video looks to have been blocked from outside GDC’s site. So, go view it there.

Sure, the announcement anniversary just passed, and the seven-month anniversary of its release is two weeks away. So, consider this either a dessert or an amuse bouche: “Remi Returns to Return to Monkey Island,” a look back at the game now that the new-car smell has worn off.

And, there isn’t much more to say about it. Maybe you’ll agree, maybe you won’t. Either way: read it! You know you want to!

Twenty-four hours remain for you to decide whether you want to have electricity this month or own any/all of these from your rapacious friends at Limited Run Games:

Meanwhile, folks on the forums are reminiscing that it was a year ago today that Ron announced a new Monkey Island game as a vicious April Fools joke. Still can’t believe some of you fell for that. There’s a sucker born every minute, I suppose.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the best Aprils non-fools schtick in recent memory, we’re seeing some more “lessons learned”-type information making its way to the public. Take producer Jenn Sandercock’s recent GDC talk, The Production Secrets of 'Return to Monkey Island', from which you can download the presentation deck. I haven’t read it myself, but couldn’t help but notice this tidbit while skimming through it.

According to one David Fox, Return’s musicians also held a talk called Thirty Years Later: Scoring 'Return to Monkey Island'. We haven’t gotten our grubby hands or eyes on that one yet—if you can help us track it down, we’ll pay in hugs and love. Not a bad little soundtrack, that.

Download PDF

• RTMI_ProductionSecrets_GDC2023.pdf From jennsand.com

At least for consoles, that is.

As pointed out by Jn, you can now pick up a boxed version of ReMI for $35.

Let’s be honest, you can never own too many copies of the game. Run to Amazon and buy, buy, buy!

And we’re all privileged enough to witness it:

So he’s making feverish progress on his newest game, interrupted only to hang out with Dom? Ron is living his best life right now.

Ronzo's next game, an RPG we've taken it upon ourselves to code name A Little Something, isn't as far away as we might have guessed:

Are we looking at the first screenshot? And just when can expect to traverse Ron's Hyrule, anyway?

That would be a rather swift turnaround considering Ron shipped a game six months ago. On the other hand, he's been percolating on this one since at least 2018, so maybe I shouldn't be so dubious. The point is, Ron's not done with you, and you're not done with Ron, and we're here to support the addiction.

Touché, Ron. And touché, Marius.

If you’ve struggled to get through the 100 trivia cards in Return to Monkey Island, know that another hill is right ahead of you. 70 new trivia cards have been added to the game, and many of them are, for the lack of a better term, fiendish. And for that, you can blame credit sometimes-Mojo-correspondent Marius, who wrote them all.

When reached for comments, Marius had this to say:

Us being us, we feverously slaved updating our online version of the trivia. Does it all work? I do not know because I don’t know the answers to all of the questions! But this is a great time for you to find out.

Jenn Sandercock, who produced Return to Monkey Island, not to mention Thimbleweed Park before that, will be attending this year's Game Developers Conference in March to give a talk about the production processes that led to the game being recognized among Mixnmojo's most preferred of September 2022:

It's unclear if the presumptive recording to come out of this is something GDC is going to share with the public free of charge - there's a bit of inconsistency in the way they handle that - but it costs nothing to hope.

In his coverage for Limited Run’s upcoming Return to Monkey Island physical release(s), Remi noted the unusual offering of an “upgrade kit,” in which you get an expanded and corrected version of the Anthology box (with the game logos in the correct order, in addition to appending ReMI’s position) along with a smattering of additional trinkets.

Well, Limited Run is workshopping an altogether new comedy sketch with the so-called “Gold Key Bundle.” See, the other quirk of these releases that you may remember was that each of the four individual editions (one per platform), plus the upgrade kit, would respectively include replicas of each of the five keys Guybrush collects in the game’s second half, in a predatory play for the OCD fan who's gotta catch 'em all. A visual reminder of how all that shakes out (note the bottom left of each picture):

For those who have lost their goddamned minds and would actually pursue that, the distributor is helpfully offering a comprehensive bundle of all the above for an even $419.99.

What kind of diseased mind even conceives of this stuff? Anyhoodle: buy away. Bankruptcy ain’t nothing but a number.

I mean, we knew it was gonna happen, right? Return to Monkey Island in a glorious, limited box.

$89; $60 for an anthology “upgrade kit.” What do you get? We’re talking LeChuck’s onboarding pamphlet; a letter from Ron and Dave (presumably the ingame one); the scrapbook; a blowfish stress ball; the Chum lure pin; a platform specific golden key (just so you can buy five copies); a poster; booklet. And what do you know—a soundtrack!

This is what second mortgages are made of.

Sure, only the first and last words of “Best Puzzle Game” properly describe Return to Monkey Island, but any nomination is a worthwhile nomination.

Somewhat more awesome, in my not-so-humble mind, is “Best Performance in a Game,” where Dom received a well-deserved nomination. Says IGN:

Sounds about right to me. The results are set to be delivered on December 12th.

So, let’s see...

Return to Monkey Island is not only available to order from GOG, but it’s also 20% off. Run and buy another copy, right now!

Meanwhile, LRG slams down with the Humongous Classic Collection for Switch. $60 gets you six classic (Footnote: Presumably, I never played them.) kids games and a soundtrack.

Grumpy Gamer has less than grumpily revealed an early ReMI puzzle dependency chart. Spoilers abound, of course, and definitely some cool “what if” revelations in there.

Three updates for the price of one—we’re all about convenience here at Mojo.

Surprising few, Return to Monkey Island took home the Golden Joystick award for “PC Game of the Year”:

What is there to say at this point, really? ReMI has run victory laps since its day of release, and little suggests it will stop anytime soon.

How will it fare when we hand out the coveted Mojo Game of the Year, though? The competition is steep, so time will tell (Footnote: Actually, it’s the only Mojo-related game of 2022, so the odds look to be on its side.).